[No, of course Noa wasn't stopping them already. He was sitting back and laughing as Lucas and others tried to steer people away from AM. And yet Noa didn't fire him.]

Well, then start stopping those rumors now!

[He has already moved forward and he slaps the desk with the words "start" and "now".]

I doubt a neutral party is going to help, Noa. [He takes a breath, standing back up and stepping back once more.] If you don't want me to be the head of this lab, there are better ways to go about it than your ridiculous underhanded tricks.

[Given that AM has been paranoid about conspiracies against him lately, why wouldn't he add this to the pile? Particularly when it seems all of the lab employees hate him, and Noa is... well, Noa.]